


Clockwork

by TundrainAfrica



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Shingeki no Kyojin Chapter 132: Wings of Freedom Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:35:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29333898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TundrainAfrica/pseuds/TundrainAfrica
Summary: "No side can be too taut, no side too loose. They need to move completely in sync. If one though perfects the balanced dance that comes with perfectly coordinating these opposing forces, it becomes an art. And sometimes the thinnest ropes could carry the heaviest weights."Hange deals with loss, social pressure, the impending war and the responsibilities of being commander.
Relationships: Levi/Hange Zoë
Comments: 29
Kudos: 98
Collections: Tumblr Prompts and Oneshots (Tundrainafrica)





	Clockwork

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the following prompt: 
> 
> "I read chapter 132 fanfics only from Levi’s perspective and while I enjoyed them, I need to read something from Hanji’s perspective too. I just learned that the moment when she met the scouts and Erwin telling her she did her duty was just a hallucination and it breaks my heart even more. I can’t imagine the emotional and mental turmoil she was going through if her mind had to create a hallucination in which she gets the acknowledgement she needed. It’s not that some words of praise was all she needed to feel confident about herself as a leader, but maybe if someone would’ve acknowledged the work SHE put in during those 4-5 years, maybe she wouldn’t have compared herself to Erwin so often? And it hurts even more that she’s not even mentioned anymore after her death, and to make matters even worse, at some point Armin mentions Erwin, not Hange... this feels like such a slap in the face for her character, like she was just a filler commander. I wish Isayama would’ve put more respect on her name."
> 
> (I really hope I captured Hange's character with this. She was surprisingly difficult to write.)

“You’re a pride to us. And I say that as a fellow working man within the walls”

“Thanks.” Hange had hoped her reply would have come out a little more enthusiastic. Pleasantries came easy before and she had gotten used to the effortlessness of them a long time ago. The words made it out of her lips yet she found herself speechless a second later.

 _Did it come out right?_ Of course it wouldn’t have. She had spent too much time contemplating the validity of his statement.

 _Pride?_ She was the commander and their forces have been recently reduced from hundreds to ten. Where was the pride there? Should she be denying it? Shouldn’t she be rejecting such a compliment?

It ended up a battle between her awareness of the social norms and her belief in what was right. A long fought battle that had ended in what Hange soon found out had only been a second. But what else is there to say?

“Maybe you should write an article praising the survey corps then.” It was Levi who had spoken up. At face value, his voice had seemed toneless.

As someone who had seen the peak and troughs of Levi’s emotions though, Hange saw emotion, she saw investment. In Levi’s nonchalant demeanor, she saw confidence and as if by some survival instinct, she clung onto it so tightly.

It worked. It grounded her. It made her a little more aware of the malty taste in her tea, the musty smell of the newspaper office. Once again, her brain had taken control off her body, driving away the weight that had pressed on her shoulders and the knot that had tightly woven itself around her stomach.

_You just got back from an expedition like that._

_You just witnessed the death of hundreds of soldiers._

_You just got promoted to commander._

_Of course, you wouldn’t be feeling your best._ At least then, she believed it.

* * *

“You wanna take the day off?”

That question had come out of nowhere. It had Hange dropping her wads of paperwork violently on the table, more violently than she had intended. “Why would I?” She asked.

“It’s only been a week since we came back. You don’t have to report our findings in the basement to the queen until next week.” Levi answered. “I just feel like it would do you some good.”

Hange avoided his gaze but she still felt it. It bore holes into her and it had her one good eye stinging. Then she felt something else. The weight that had been visiting in regular intervals since they had gone back. It crept up on her once again, climbing all the way up her shoulders. “How can I?”

“We can work on the paperwork together. Maybe ask Armin for some help.” Levi suggested.

Hange looked out the window. The weight had become a little too heavy. And it looked like it did have some power over her. Maybe a little too much.

She looked out the window at the setting sun. The orange was bright, bright enough to make her good eye ache. And the ache at least gave some excuse for a little vulnerability.

“You’re crying,” Levi said. And Hange looked to him almost instinctively, an aftereffect of having for so long searched for solace somewhere.

Levi furrowed his brow and bit his lip, twisting his face into what could have been a look of concern.

 _But do I deserve the concern? Do I actually deserve a break from all this?_ “No. I just looked directly at the sun and it hurt more than I thought it would.” Hange let out a light laugh. Not from her own joke but from the satisfaction that at least those last words had come out as light as she intended to be.

Levi’s eyes though were still on her, the look on his face unchanging.

“My eye isn’t healed yet so I guess it’s just more sensitive to bright lights,” Hange explained. She tapped at her bandaged eye. Once. Then twice. “Ow!” It was still far from healed and she had expected that sharp pain. It gave her an excuse at least to let out her emotions with a single scream and a few more good tears.

“Levi… My eye hurts…” It was supposed to come out as something playful. Something to justify the scream and the tears, a staged release of pent up emotions.

Things didn’t go as planned though. Tears were blurring her vision. Her lips trembled. Her legs lost control. And Hange found herself sliding down against the wall, her hands over her mouth.

Her lips had trembled harder than she expected. She was left unable to let out more than uncontrollable whimpers, the byproduct of an impulse to wail that she had intentionally subdued.

Other people may have been working overtime. Some of the survey corps still passed through this building on the way back to their barracks for the night. _And god forbid, they hear her like that._

“Just let it out.” Levi’s voice should have been comforting. The hand he had placed on her shoulder and the grip that only tightened should have been some sign at least that she could let out whatever pent up emotions were still inside her.

 _Do you deserve it?_ Emotions though were a luxury she couldn’t allow herself. And the weight crept up again to whisper in her ear, to remind her of how much she really deserved.

The tears eventually saw their end. And the controlled and rehearsed laugh Hange allowed herself as she shook off Levi’s hand and pulled herself back up only helped to put her back on a strict rhythm.

She loosened her stiff and aching joints “No time for breaks Levi. Moblit and Erwin aren’t here to sort these paperwork out anymore. It’s our job now,” she said. Hange soon realized, if she focused on the rhythm of her breathing and the black and white in the room, she could grasp for a little more control of her unruly excuse of a body.

It continued to fight for some control though.

 _What do you want? Rest? Sleep?_ She didn’t let her body answer. It had been anger surprisingly that had pushed her to a standing position, and that had pushed her to plop her heavy and aching body onto the chair in front of her.

_You shouldn’t have stationed your team too close to the colossal then. Moblit shouldn’t have had to risk his own life trying to save yours if you had made the right decision._

Hange reminded herself that among all of them, she was the only one alive. She was the only one among them who could still take breaks, eat, sleep and feel. Those were luxuries she had taken away from them with her own faulty judgement.

“Rest is still important. You haven’t even slept since we got back here,” Levi pointed out.

“Who needs sleep?” Hange asked as she looked through the piles of paper. From her peripherals, she could still see Levi awkwardly standing to her side. That sight was somehow distracting. “You can go ahead. I’ll finish up for the night.”

“I can stay.”

“No. Please don’t.”

She was still commander and that had been an order. And for once, between the two long time friends, the implication of Hange’s new found promotion was realized.

Levi never said any words of approval or acceptance of the order. Hange wasn’t looking for it either. That conversation had ended with only a deafening silence between the two. A silence appended with the rustle of paperwork and hesitant footsteps.

Hange saw pattern in it. She found routine. And she used the subtle rhythm to keep herself grounded and conscious. And as the door slammed behind her a little louder than what could have been comfortable, Hange lay back on the chair and looked up at the white ceiling.

The only emotions she allowed herself were anger and rage. All to be focused towards her. Pure anger and rage though turned out to be nothing much without other emotions to complement them. And those emotions came out so anticlimactically, channeled into one rough sigh that burned at her throat.

No time for emotions. You have a job to do. When she was working, she at least felt like she was atoning somehow. When she pulled that all nighter, when her head started to spin and her eyes started to water, she thought she deserved a little indulgence

As she reviewed her report for the third time, a few hours after midnight, she allowed herself the luxury of humming some nostalgic tune off key. Somehow for the first time since they arrived, she was a little more carefree.

And somehow she did hope. _Maybe things will get better after all._

* * *

By dawn, she had finished writing out reports. Actually, she had finished it long before the night was up. Sleep though wasn’t something she would waste her time on. Instead she spent the night sifting through file after file. In case, I did make an error. She justified.

There were no blatant errors. Hange had looked at it more than five times, ruminating over each complex word and awkward sentence. If she weren’t naturally a fast reader, it would have taken her all night to go through it once. The repetitive motion and the patterns in contents had Hange memorizing sections and outlines much faster. She had written everything herself after all.

It eventually did get tedious and before Hange noticed, it had lulled her to sleep.

Her brain was not merciful though. The first rays of light, the dimmer ones which came with the sun’s first peek out on the horizon was enough to pull Hange once again to her reality.

The view out the window had painted the room a subtle blue, a reflection of the sky outside the window. The dim lights had been more than enough though for Hange to recognize the shape that sat on the chair next to her table.

“Levi…” Hange muttered, half asleep.

“You didn’t have to review it this many times,” Levi said as he held out the paper in front of her. Some areas had been crumpled, others worn from the constant pressing, pinching and flipping from the night before.

Hange rubbed her good eye and sat up a little straighter. “What else is there to do?”

“Rest,” Levi answered, looking pointedly at her.

Hange started to wonder how she looked to him. Her eyes were heavy, her body was protesting her sitting up and once again that heaviness was over her shoulders and the burden spread all the way to her fingertips. The chill of the wood on her fingertips had felt surreal. As she picked at a pockmark on the table, Hange couldn’t help but entertain the infinitesimally slim possibility that at that moment, her hands weren’t hers to control.

 _Or I’m just tired._ Hange thought to herself. She only had to shake her head a few times and clear her throat to gain a more lucid control of her extremities.

"I'm going to the market today. If you need anything, you should come with me."

* * *

Hange had always enjoyed the market. The fisherman's catch and the farmer’s produce varied and there had always been something new to admire or muse about.

_Maybe there's a new species of riverfish? A catfish? Or a weirdly shaped smelt?_

Hange found herself humming once again as she surveyed the stalls that only got closer and closer together as they approached the center of town. The crowds were getting larger and the bustle had started to become a little comforting.

It was nostalgic. And for the first time in a while, Hange’s lips had curled up into a smile.

"Just keep moving…"

Hange felt a strong hand behind her, pushing her forward. She looked back to see Levi, looking a little tense.

_Why?_

She didn't need to answer that. The way Levi had looked around him only drew Hange's own attention to whispers. Before she even knew it, she started to scan her surroundings once again, trying to match the voices and the faces and trying to make sense of the conversations.

_Commander of the Survey Corps, Hange Zoe._

_Wasn't she a squad leader before becoming commander?_

_Don't you wonder what became of her squad?_

_Can she do as good of a job…_

_Commander Erwin Smith?_

Her pace had slowed down gradually. Hange only noticed it when she felt the pull at her coat and the strong yet gentle push forward.

 _I am doing my job._ Hange thought to herself. She would have wanted to say it out loud there, prove the taleteller wrong. In the sea of hundreds of people, the words only blended with faces and with no concrete subject, Hange was left to convince a phantom.

As she was pushed further into the crowds, she did start to realize, she had been too busy indulging in the sites of the markets and the bustle of the city. _If you walked any faster, you probably would have been back in the office by now._ Hange scolded herself.

 _This is work._ She kept that last phrase like a mantra as she picked up her pace. _Once you get what you need, get out of here._

She arrived the denser part of town where each view and each side of the market she turned to, she saw countless rows of merchandise. The wide variety of goods that used to get her so amused and so distracted, only made her realize one truth much faster at that moment.

She didn't need anything.

She bolted out into the outskirts of the square once again. She found herself putting her hand to her mouth, her eye downcast. Unable to stare straight ahead, Hange stood in the middle of the road, completely blind to what was in front of her.

 _You're lazy. You're fucking lazy._ She had wasted at least an hour wandering around, keeping an idle pace. You don't have the time. You have work to catch up on.

"Hange…" Levi came up beside her.

His voice once again had been a source of comfort and Hange found herself looking towards him again. "Did you buy what you needed?"

"One of the fishermen caught a pretty big catfish. You might like to see it."

After wasting this much time? "I'm going home," Hange turned on her heel towards the nearest route she was sure had the least detours. The faster I get to the office the better.

"Didnt you want to buy anything?"

Hange shook her head. "Go get what you need alone. I have work to do."

As she made her way home, Hange couldn't help but notice that unlike before, she wasn't at all excited to see that catfish.

* * *

With the death of soldiers, there was always backlash. Exterminating the Titans within the territory of Wall Maria could practically be considered routine, especially when compared to the battle against the Beast Titan.

The forces of the survey corps though had dwindled since they took back Shiganshina. Consequently, with the pressure to take back the land, the survey corps had to be reinforced with the not-so-battle-hardened military police soldiers and garrison soldiers.

Accidents were unavoidable. And during the expeditions, Hange was counting deaths. In between expeditions, Hange was making the harrowing ride to the house of each deceased soldier, gifting what was left of their loved one, playing the punching bag to every distraught widow or mother.

Most had at least been understanding. Each life was understood to have been a price paid for the take back of Wall Maria.

Some though had been hostile.

"Why did he die?"

"He was eaten by a three meter titan," Hange answered.

She felt the tautness in her own voice. At that moment, the tremble in the woman's voice, the hostility in her eyes only made the weight on Hange's shoulders almost unbearable. She found herself seeking some sort of an escape in the memory of the soldier who had reported the death. And unknowingly, maybe she had emulated that same tone the soldier had used when reporting the death soon after he had witnessed it.

“I know he got eaten by a titan! What I want to know is why did it happen? Why didn’t you save him?"

 _Why didn't I save him? What were you doing?_ Hange thought to herself. Racking her brain for some sort of an answer to these questions had been more painful than she thought. But she powered through it.

The memories of the mission of only a day ago came in quick and painful flashes. "I was distracted…" Hange admitted.

"By what? Aren't you the commander? Aren't these men your responsibility?"

By the landscapes, the trees, the mountains. It was her first time at the northern part of the walls. She had ridden towards the front and consequently had the best view of the novelty offered by the flora and the fauna of the slightly colder climate up north.

She wasn't telling her that though. "Yes they're my responsibility."

"Then why didn't you save him? Why couldn't you come up with something? You're the commander right? Why couldn't you be more alert?"

"I should have been more alert." Somewhere along the way, Hänge had stopped thinking and had let the woman in front of her guide the conversation to where it was supposed to go. The weight on her shoulders had only pressed further into her making it impossible to think beyond what the distraught woman was offering.

Somewhere along the way, Hange's replies devolved to almost thoughtless agreements.

_Commander Erwin wouldn't have let this happen._

That encounter had ended more rough than Hange would have liked. The woman lunged for Hange so violently, that she felt her eye get a little wet, and her breath hitch. The woman was weak and Hange had dealt with worse assaults. But somehow her body knew it wasn’t any time to defend herself.

 _Was she worth defending?_ Her agreements weren't thoughtless. Hange had been listening, she just couldn't help but think the woman was right. Erwin could have done a better job.

At that moment, she couldn’t even imagine herself as a commander. She was merely a chew toy. Even when the woman had started to dig her nails deeper into Hange’s arms, Hange couldn’t pull away.

_If that’s part of her punishment for negligence, then so be it._

Levi had been the one who pulled her away. By the time Hange did come to her senses, she realized her shoulders ached and stung with what could have been wounds. A little too shaken by that final visit, the last few moments in the room had blended into blurs of the rustic colors of the walls and faint, distant voices.

Levi had done the final greetings and he had been the one to pull her out of the room.

It could have been the change of scenery, the slam of the door behind her and the words from Levi that had eventually pulled her out of what could have been a catatonic state.

"You wouldn't have known. You were out front," Levi said.

“I’m commander now. They expect more from me," Hange explained. "She was right. I should have watched over the people under me more closely. That's all there is to it”

Hange had done the same work as squad leader. It had never been easy going house to house dropping the unfortunate news and the remains of each soldier that had died on the field. But at least then, she still had some control of her body, enough to calmly explain the situation to each distraught loved one. And even the few times they had been a little more hostile, Hange was able to convince herself then that death was a reality of war and not the sole responsibility of any leader. 

_What made this any different?_

As if to answer her question, the familiar weight embraced her once again, making it a little more difficult to put one foot in front of the other as the two walked silently back to the barracks.

Her mistakes replayed in her head so vividly, peppered with the voices that had brought them to light in the first place. Before she knew it, she had started to relive them with every sleight and every motion.

Even just pondering small comforts had her guilty. Consequently, she refused the offer to take a carriage.

An hour later, she refused the offer of dinner.

* * *

Seeing the ocean was a quick reprieve. Too quick to have been burned into Hange’s mind.

The ocean became a battlefield, a place of work. With the discovery of the ocean and the rush to strategize for the coming war, it had been question after question and Hange was the one granted the responsibility to scramble for answers and plans. 

_What’s your opinion on this? What's your decision? What's your back up plan commander?_

Days went by faster with each new turn of events. Eventually the first boat from Marley had landed on their shores.

Then the second. Then the third. Then other countries started to visit and share ideas. And with each new development, Hange saw hope. With the war on hold, with the titans completely eradicated, there wasn’t much loss to ponder nor too many mistakes to contemplate.

It was a completely new field, a new environment. And no one at least was mentioning how much better of a job any other commander would have done. All they had for reference after all was Hange.

And maybe she started to enjoy it a bit.

Eventually though, Hange had to take more Marleyan prisoners as part of a campaign for insider info. It was she who had to make the call of whether or not to take them back and to load them into the refurbished castle within Wall Rose.

Hange had fought titans and humans alike. Whatever decision she made would have at least been a little nuanced, and would have definitely been backed by her decades worth of experience with enemies. There were monsters though that even she had not predicted to exist. There were concepts she had never considered, having lived sheltered within the walls for a huge part of her life.

It turned out just being a different race as someone had people violent and it had people ruthless. Of course, the Marleyans hated the Eldians, that’s why they dropped titans in Paradis in the first place. Although Hange had witnessed the way they twisted their faces as disgust when they were captured and the way the word Devil had so quickly left their mouths, she had never witnessed first hand, the way the disgust of one human could easily twist and evolve into a rage filled rampage. That had been a slight miscalculation on her end.

A miscalculation that ended with a bloodied castle, one survey corps member injured and another one killed. Hange hadn’t been there when it happened. She had been too busy surveying the ship wreck, too busy sharing ideas with the more friendly Marleyans.

And she should have seen it coming.

"If you killed all of them, if you muzzled them instead of trying to play nice. We wouldn’t have lost Colin!” It was Floch of all people who had knocked some sense into her and Hange could only listen, as his words so painfully echoed in that small anteroom at the castle basement.

Somehow, that exchange brought Hange back to the woman who had grabbed her by the shoulders so violently, only a little more than two years ago before the ports and the railroads.

You're the commander. Once again, the weight crept up her shoulders and all the way up to her neck. It strangled her so tightly. Yet, if she at least attempted to free herself off its bonds she could still survey the room, the red on the wall where Colin had been stabbed. The bloodstains on the floor from where they had shot the Marleyan and when she looked behind Floch, she saw two or three other survey corps, members with the same hostility in their eyes.

_Am I still the commander? People are supposed to be trusting their commanders right?_

She wasn’t a commander. It was just a title, a name on paper. She had been playing around, hyper fixating on the developments a little too much. She was enjoying them instead of assessing the gravity of their reality, the risks and the lives that could be lost with every wrong move.

_And the life that was lost just an hour ago._

“Stop it Floch, all of you. Get moving. You can’t talk to your commander like this…” Jean spoke up from his place next to her. 

“Commander? She should be charged for negligence. Commander Erwin wouldn’t have done this. He would have treated them how they’re supposed to be treated. This is a war! We lost a life here… And for what? There’s no victory coming anytime soon. We need a war general out on the field… Not….” Floch paused and looked away. “Whatever you think you are…”

“You can be punished for insubordination!” 

“So be it. Better than to answer to someone like her.” With that, the soldiers left the room, slamming the door behind them.

 _How did things get like this?_ Hange clutched at her own wrist a little too lately. The weight on her shoulders, pushed her head down. Her movements were limited to the tips of her extremities, the places that required the least push and pull to move.

The two left the castle a few minutes after. It was Jean who had to guide Hange that night through the motions of making it home, keeping a steady cadence with his steps.

“You could have said something. You’re their commander…”

 _Am I really? Have I been making the right decisions?_ “Let it go, Jean. Of course he’d be angry, he was close to Colin. Besides. we can’t change what other people think.” Hange managed to say.

The weight had a special way of creeping up her. It strangled her in ways that left her unable to move. Her body though had learned so many of the motions having been hers to control for more than thirty years. And maybe it was working independently from her.

For a second she had even entertained the possibility that maybe she had just been so incompetent, her body was also starting to lose trust in her decisions.

The weight and the crushing numbness continued to blanket her. It had a special way of picking the right position to keep her uncomfortable yet keep her very much alive.

When she stood, it pushed her down. When she sat, it embraced her. And as she made the difficult decision to retire early for the night an hour past midnight, the weight didn’t make it easier. It sat on her chest, keeping her barely breathing.

And maybe for an hour or so she did doze off. That night, when the world was blanketed in darkness, and her body lay unmoving on the bed, Hange could have clocked everything to a fevered dream. In the midst of it all, she did lose track of time.

When the sun made its next journey up the horizon again, when the sunlight came in streams that brightened by the minute, Hange was there to witness it. She was mentally there to fixate on it as well.

 _What else is there to do?_ Her body refused to move. The weight was directly on her chest and crushed her, heavy enough to leave her numb and barely breathing yet still light enough to keep her conscious and aware enough of her bleak surroundings.

 _Keep moving!_ It could have been the passage of time that had spoken up, manifesting itself in the room that was slowly brightening up, bathed in light and colors. But do they need her there? Wasn’t the weight enough proof that she shouldn’t even be trying anymore?

There were Deaths. Should-haves and Would-haves. Insubordinations. As Hange silently and quickly recounted all those, she came up with a conclusion.

_Maybe Armin would be a better commander._

“Hey, are you gonna get out of bed anytime soon?”

_What time is it?_

“It’s already seven.” It was just like Levi to know the answers without her having to ask aloud.

And with just one long look, as if that had been enough of a prompt, Levi approached the side of her bed and pulled her up. The weight fought for control but Levi was still humanity’s strongest.

He was strong yet he was gentle with Hange. And he did manage to get her to a standing position. Hange realized, if she did just focus on getting two feet on the floor, and worked to coordinate each step, her body would still continued to move like it was her own.

It was difficult. It was slow going. Levi though, was right beside her and the few times she did give him a passing look, she saw it. His gaze was fixed on her and long after she looked away, she still felt it. Maybe that was how the fear of getting trampled by that constant weight on her shoulder, fell to the back of her mind. And that was how Hange was once again able to get her bearings.

The incident of the day before saw its peaceful end with a few words, a few orders to clean up. Levi had offered to do the honors of reporting the death of the soldier to his family.

Hange on the other hand was once again needed somewhere else. With the rapid expansion, the building of ports and railroads, she had another project to oversee.

Levi had helped carry her weight that morning. He did it through the glances he snuck her, the way he brushed her as he walked past her. With him gone though, the weight only pushed harder on her back with every step.

 _Is this how it’s going to be forever?_ Hange found herself thinking as she stepped off the carriage and out into the port where a pulley was being set up.

“Commander Zoe, pleasure to meet you.” One of the foremen called out.

“Pleasure to meet you too.” _Were my words clear? Did I stutter?_

“We’ll be starting soon on the port extension. We just need to make sure all the construction equipment are set up properly,” he explained.

 _That’s great? That’s exciting. What were the best words to say?_ Somehow, that weight had crushed her emotions too and with no emotions to guide whatever comment should come out of her mouth, Hange froze. She kept quiet and let the foreman continue.

 _What do I do?_ Levi wasn’t there. He said he’d catch up. But Levi was just a captain, a special squad captain at that. In the grand scheme of the military hierarchy, he shouldn’t have been there at all. There were too many things to think of at once and Hange found herself instead, focusing on one object to ground her once again on her current circumstances.

She focused so closely on the contraption he had mentioned they were currently testing. The pulley carried a platform which Hange was familiar with. It carried tons of wood over the air and onto specific areas where they were to be laid out..

The movements were mechanical. They were predictable and Hange found herself envying that inanimate object for being able to function the way it was expected to.

Having worked with machines and contraptions long before Marley had even stepped foot on their shore, Hange knew achieving predictability in even the most simple machines was no easy task.

No side can be too taut, no side too loose. They need to move completely in sync. If one though perfects the balanced dance that came with a perfect coordination of opposing forces, it becomes an art.

Sometimes the thinnest ropes could carry the heaviest weights.

Then it hit her. The world was heavy. The weight on her shoulders that in time had become more like a constant false friend was unbearable yet Hange soon realized it would never leave and she was the one who would have to adjust.

Her body wasn’t a contraption that ran on ropes and pulleys though. The way she was able to move her body then, the way she crossed her arms, and nodded her head as she feigned understanding on the foreman’s tirade reminded her of something else yet something still mechanical.

She likened herself more to a mechanical doll that ran on clockwork. And like the pulleys and the ropes, clockwork mechanisms followed the same physical rules as any other contraptions.

The physical rules of the world after all were similar at their most fundamental parts. Hange had to note though that although humans had been slaves to those same fundamentals, they had emotions, dreams that sometimes transcended what their reality offered them.

Hange couldn’t afford that same luxury. Her emotions and desires just had a tendency of overindulging when she let them even a little loose. She couldn’t be trusted and the only way to lay out a semblance of control was to adapt strict rules. She ended up entrusting her activities to the mercy of routine and to the laws of motion

Sometimes the only way to carry the weight, to keep functioning is to follow the processes built for her like a mechanical doll. To find the perfect balance. To find the perfect patterns and just follow them day to day

In time, her body became clockwork. An oiled mechanism that continued to move as it was built to. She ate the bare minimum, slept the bare minimum to keep functioning as commander.

Clockworks don’t have dreams, they don’t have passions. But in exchange for all that, they were functional. They never froze, they never stepped out of line. In those crucial moments when the world would need them to function, they would, with just one twist of the key.

 _Maybe that’s the commander they need._ The only goal she had allowed for herself then, was that hope that maybe things could be fixed with a little more talking, with a little more negotiating. And it did its job to keep the key winding and the gears spinning.

As Hange soon realized though, with the talks of fighting and the talks of extermination. Maybe she was the only one who carried that same goal.

Maybe that was what explained as well the weight that had never left. With the clockwork though, with the frameworks mechanisms that spread throughout her body, she was able to carry the weight alone.

* * *

Months passed at a slow and steady pace. Yet the few moments Hange did allow herself a little freedom from her mechanical movements, she started to realize they passed with a blink of an eye as well.

 _That’s how time has always been._ She had to remind herself. It particularly rang true that day as she revisited her lab within Wall Rose. _How long has it been since I was last here?_

The dust that had gathered could have meant months. But months could so easily have been years. The lab falling into disuse had been gradual after all. During the first few months, since she became commander, she did remember the few times she sought comfort there, going through records or analyzing a few old samples.

Seeking comfort or any temporal happiness had morphed into a guilty pleasure, and eventually the pleasure had been lost in that as well.

That night, looking at her lab, she wasn’t at all happy. Even when she had allowed herself a temporary reprieve from her mechanical movements and her predictable routines, there wasn’t pleasure at all in looking back at the room that had been hers and Moblit’s so many nights before. In fact, just allowing a wave of emotions had brought her sadness more than anything.

She had brought a box with her into the room and she dropped it onto an open space with a thump. She was quick to empty shelves.

Glassware. Proto-type weapons. Proto-type blades. Records on experiments. Case studies on her findings. Ideas for new technical improvements.

There was no need for those anymore. Marleyan technology had proved to be more reliable than whatever archaic concept she had come up with in the lab.

Hange was surprised to find out she could tell the contents of each notebook just by the color and the title. That only sped up the process of disposal. Within half an hour, the first and second box were filled and Levi had done the job of lugging it outside and dropping another one in.

She moved on to the last set of shelves. All glass bottles filled with test subjects from so long enough. She had been gentle with them, gentle enough to not break the glass. Yet rough enough to show that she did not care at all what happened to the jars inside.

No jar nor specimen was spared. And when Hange took one last look at her old research lab, she couldn’t help but think, it had started to look more like an old office than a research lab. If they actually dusted it up, anybody else could have settled in there within a day. And there would have been no hint to the previous occupants.

“You sure you want to throw these away?” Levi asked.

Hange turned to him to see that he too was surveying the empty room. His face was expressionless but she knew him long enough to read his eyes, not his face. Levi had scanned the room a few more times. She saw it in the way he bit his lip and narrowed his eyes that he didn’t want her throwing anything away.

“Aren’t you interested to know what three years could have done to your specimens?” Levi continued, only confirming what she suspected.

“No.”

Maybe there was a lie in those words. Maybe her heart would have clenched as she said it. Maybe the knot in her stomach would have tightened as Levi took the box out of the room and into the trash disposal of the building.

Before she let those feelings out though, Hange had fallen back again into the mechanical movements.

Once again, she had let the winding and the clock work take over.

* * *

It turned out processes can only get one so far. Hange could have sworn she had followed them to a T. Yet sometimes, things still went wrong. But when Hange was eating the bare minimum, sleeping the bare minimum and leaving too little time for enjoyment and too little mind space for emotions, she at least couldn’t blame herself.

 _Bad things just happen._ When her body was governed by clockwork, she could believe it. Maybe it had been the universe’s fault.

But sometimes, her emotions did leak out, and a small glimmer was enough to consume her and leave her once again aware of the weight on her back.

And sometimes they came right after the other, leaving no time for the clockwork to once again take control. Sasha’s death then Eren’s half-baked assault at Marley then the fear of an impending war.

She had first sensed the clockwork was starting to malfunction in the way the fatigue bled out of her. _I'm tired._

Maybe the clockwork had rusted over time. Maybe the gears had started to chip away with the few moments a day her emotions would leak out, her constant switches between human and contraption.

The mechanisms of the clockwork continued to flit between her own control and the control of the key. Sometimes even the mechanisms left her unable to move and Hange had let her emotions take control. More than a few times she had considered giving in to her emotions and to her humanity. Maybe give herself some time to rest.

By then though, there was nothing left to indulge in. The situation was completely desolate.

Eren betrayed the survey corps. The Jaegerists took over.

And Hange retreated back into the comforts of her failing clockwork.

* * *

“Hey? Are you okay?”

When she found him, sprawled on the ground by the river, emotions took over. It was those same emotions that had pushed her to jump into the river to save him.

And when she held onto him, she felt it. There was more to life than her goals as a commander. There were desires and wishes. There were daydreams of would-haves and could-haves.

She was alive.

When she pulled him out of the river and into the tree-lined shores, when she pressed her fingers to his neck, searching for a sign of life, she felt panic. When she pushed at his chest and pressed her lips into his, she felt desperation. When his chest rose and he turned to the side coughing up water by what could have been gallons, she felt relief and hope.

And she started to think, maybe there was more to life. Maybe that’s what had her crying then.

She shot at the stragglers to save both of them. She cleaned his wounds and sewn them up. At that moment, she was in awe at her own deftness even in the most panicked of circumstances. For a moment she wondered why she had ever decided to abandon all emotions and human thoughts.

And for once since she had become commander, she was proud of something. She let out a subtle smile, not at her handiwork but at the fact that she had even been so amused at such a small achievement.

But as she took advantage of the dimness of the forest and the silence only broken by rhythmic crackling of the fire, she reflected. It wasn’t pride. It was relief.

Emotions came one after the other and as if taking advantage of the leeway she had given them when it was only she and Levi in the forest. She ended up processing the weight on her shoulders, the relief, the regrets, and maybe that little pride at her handiwork. All those pushed her to say something the clockwork inside her would soon protest.

_Maybe we should just live here together. Right, Levi?_

An hour or so later, he did reply. _I know you. You wouldn’t stay out of the action._

She had hopes. She had desires. But that one reply had been a reminder of her goals. Goals had been that keyword for the clockwork to once again take over.

Hange made sure to wind it up slowly to the rhythm of the hammer on the wagon.

* * *

She had tried to wind it up again and again to no avail. She found herself flitting between movements fueled by emotions and those fueled by procedure.

Sometimes, she was the commander. Sometimes she was Levi’s aide.

When a half-dead Floch had shot at the fuel tank of their plane, and with the Rumbling only approaching, Hange had to admit one truth. The mechanical doll was defective. The mechanical doll was useless. Maybe some cogs had been chipped. Maybe some gears had been rusted.

In every contraption, whether it be one that runs on pulleys or gears, sometimes things have to be replaced.

She had seen it herself many times on the construction site. When the rope is too taut, one loosens it. When it’s too loose one tightens it. When it won’t cooperate, one cuts it off, throws it out and buys a new one.

Despite all those, when the pulley just seems to fail having been replaced and used way too many times, sometimes it just has to be dismantled and thrown away. Left to rot and rust for eternity.

It worked similarly with clockwork.

When the cogs are all rusted, when the gears are too chipped or worn to even be recognizable, sometimes the best thing to do is just to dismantle it, count it as scraps and just throw it out. .

“Oh yeah, Levi’s your subordinate now so you can order him around all you want. ” And maybe that’s all she was, That rusted cog, that chipped gear. With no other use, she deserved to be thrown out.

Throwing out the rusted cog or the broken gear had always been satisfying, Hange had done enough tinkering to know there was something novel in dismantling failing contraptions.

For a moment, that glimmer of a positive feeling was what pushed her forward. She had started off with big and confident strides. Like most strong beginnings with too weak of a base, it died too quickly. Within a second, as she saw the colossal titans appear, she fell back once again to her rusted cogs and her chipped gears. She just needed to hold on long enough to reach them.

“I want to look as cool as I possibly can right now. Just let me go will you?” Somehow, the clockwork remained strong enough to plaster some excuse of a smile and some rehearsed dialogue.

“Dedicate your heart.”

Hange hadn’t had time to even consider Levi’s reply, another nick on her already broken frame. Consequently, she hadn’t had time either to think ahead as to what a commander would have said in such a situation.

Especially when it was him of all people who stood in front of her. His hand was pressed on her heart of all places.

 _Heart. You have a heart._ He had brought her heart to her attention and as if by magic, Hange felt the beat that reverberated up until her ears. She felt it caressing at her chin, making her lips tremble once again.Her heartbeat was too wild to have ever been mistaken for something created in a workshop. And as she looked to Levi, somehow it had all connected.

_You're not someone's handiwork. You're not a cog in a wheel._

_You're someone with hopes and dreams._

_You run on emotions and motivations. You run on passion._

_Passion._ Hange did see that same passion in Levi’s eyes at that moment, before it quickly died out.

With the titans approaching though, she couldn’t give that a second thought. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say something like that.”

With that, the cogs made their final creak, the contraption, its final squeak before the cogs and the gears fell away to reveal what was underneath.

For a second she doubted if she would have been able to carry the weight that had haunted her for so many years. The ODM gear had proved to be a strong alternative. When she had left the gear to their devices, they did have her soaring in the air. When she admired the view from fifty feet up in the air, a smile did creep up her lips.

She had to note the novelty, yet the nostalgia of it all. The weight didn’t come, and for once in so many years, nothing was stopping her from staring in awe, from being fascinated or from being inspired.

 _I hereby appoint you 15th commander of the survey corps._ She was free.

Maybe that’s why at that moment, fifty feet up in the air, she had found the titans incredible. Maybe that’s how she found herself once again capable of getting lost in the breathtaking view even as it fell away, replaced by steam then flames.

The pain eventually caught up to her. It had lasted for an eternity yet at the same time it had only lasted a few seconds.

In the midst of what she knew would be her one final reflection and her one final atonement, she had to admit, she had almost forgotten how it felt like to fly.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is very much appreciated!


End file.
